Abstract: Science Set Journal of Physics

Abstract:
We discuss “temporal drift,” my term for the degree to which clocks in a fixed reference frame dis-synchronize with distance as defined by slow clock transport in both pre-relativistic (“classical”) and relativistic physics. Then we demonstrate that the usual expression for length contraction is unaffected by temporal drift, although there is a subtlety in the definition of velocity when temporal drift is present. Then we demonstrate the invariance of the line element in relativity and show that the off-diagonal terms of the 4-metric are intimately related to the temporal drift when g00 is chosen to equal c2 . Finally, we investigate temporal drift and synchrony in accelerating and rotating frames and find that temporal drift is irreducible in these cases.